Abstract

Have you ever looked up at the stars at night and wondered how fast they were moving or how far away they were? By studying how the brightness of a star changes with distance, you can answer those questions. In this astronomy science project, you'll create a model of starlight and use Google's Science Journal app with your smartphone or tablet to discover the key relationship between brightness and distance.

Objective

To determine how the light intensity of a point source of light, like a star, changes with distance from that source.

Share your story with Science Buddies!

Yes,I Did This Project!
Please log in (or create a free account) to let us know how things went.

Introduction

Do you love looking at the stars? No, not the Hollywood kind—the ones in the sky! For thousands of years, people have looked up at these faithful pinpoints of light and wondered about those "diamonds in the sky." They have used stars as centerpieces for religions, fuel for legends and myths, tools for navigation, and as predictable calendars for planting crops. In 1584, though, Giordano Bruno suggested that the stars were objects, much like the Sun, just farther away. This idea upset a lot of people, and he was actually killed for this and for other beliefs. It would take more than 250 years for people to accept that Bruno was right and take their first distance measurement from Earth to a star.

Figure 1. A photo, taken by Science Buddies founder Kenneth Hess, of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way at the
Golden State Star Party. (Kenneth L. Hess, 2009.)

To find out just how far away a star is, scientists first had to figure out how the light intensity of a point source of light, like a star, changes with distance. Light intensity is a measure of how much light falls on a certain area, like one square meter. Scientists experimented and predicted that the relationship between intensity and distance would follow an inverse-square law. This means that as the distance from a light source doubles, its light intensity decreases by a factor of four, (which is the square of the factor of change). This is illustrated in the Figure 2, where the red dot, the point source of light, has a light intensity we will name L0 for this example, at one unit (it could represent any unit) away from the light source; but as you double the distance to two units away, the intensity goes down by a factor of four. At three units away, the intensity goes down by a factor of nine, and so on.

Figure 2. This drawing shows how light follows an inverse square law. Notice that as the distance increases from the light source (the red dot), the light must spread out over a larger surface area, and the light intensity at the surface decreases by the distance squared. (NASA, 2006.)

In this astronomy science project, you will set up an experiment to re-create what scientists discovered about the relationship between light and distance. When you are done, think about what you would need to know to calculate how far away a star is from Earth.

Terms and Concepts

Intensity

Point source

Inverse-square law

Square

Factor

Lux (lx)

Linear

Inverse

Questions

Why do you think stars are approximated as point sources, even though they are much bigger than Earth?

Based on your research, how is it possible to measure distance of stars from changes in the light intensity of a point source?

Can you think of any other laws that follow an inverse-square relationship?

News Feed on This Topic

,
,

Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results! Learn more about the News Feed

Materials and Equipment

Bulb socket with cord and lightbulb (any wattage) or lamp with removable shade with a lightbulb (any wattage), detailed specifications can be found in the Procedure.

Measuring tape

Room that can be darkened well and cleared of objects in a 6-foot by 6-foot area

Material to align the phone with the light source. This could be a ball of clay, an easel, a camera stand, etc.

This project uses Google's Science Journal app, a free app that allows you to gather and record data with a cell phone or tablet. You can download the app from Google Play for Android devices (version 4.4 or newer) or from the App Store
for iOS devices (iOS 9.3 or newer).

Note: This project only works with the Android version of Science Journal in which light intensity is measured using the ambient light sensor and given in lux. The iOS version uses the phone's camera to measure brightness resulting in data expressed in EV (Exposure Value). Lux values and Exposure Values are not the same. Whereas Exposure Value is a base-2 logarithmic scale, the lux scale is linear. In this specific project it is important to use a linear scale to measure light intensity which is why you can only use the Android version of the app.

Experimental Procedure

For this science project, you will use a smartphone and Google's
Science Journal app to measure light intensity levels. Science Journal is an app that lets you record data using sensors that are built into many smartphones, including a light sensor. To learn how to use the
Science Journal app and how to use the light sensor, you can review the relevant tutorials on this Science Journal tutorial page. In the Android version of Science Journal, the light sensor measures light intensity in units of lux (lx), which is a measure of how much light falls on a certain area.

Setting Up Your Experiment

Familiarize yourself with the Science Journal App and light sensor.

Start with reviewing the light sensor turorials on the Science Journal tutorial page. They will explain how to find the exact location of the light sensor on your phone or tablet and how to take light intensity readings.

Test if the sensor of your phone (or tablet) is suited for this project. To do this, slowly move your phone towards and away from a light bulb. The graph should look relatively smooth (Figure 3, top). If the reading moves in large steps (Figure 3, bottom), the light sensor in this phone or tablet is not suited for this project. See if you can use a different phone or tablet instead.

Figure 3. Light intensity graphs recorded while moving the phone slowly towards a light bulb. Some sensors yield a relatively smooth graph (top), while others yield a step-wise graph (bottom). The latter type will not work well for this project.

Technical note:

You may notice that different light bulbs with the same power rating (or watt value) can yield different lux measurements. This is because a lux measurement favors some wavelengths (colors) over others in order to mimic the human eye's perception of light, and different types of light bulbs emit different sets of wavelengths. This is not a problem for this project, as you will only use one type of bulb.

Choose a light source.

Any type of light bulb where the light shines equally in all directions is fine as a light source. Note that if you choose a lamp, you might need to remove the lamp shade so that the bulb is exposed. Figure 4 shows some good choices of incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs. The bulbs in Figure 5 direct light forward. Those do not work effectively to model stars.

Figure 4. Examples of incandescent light bulbs (right) and a fluorescent light bulb (left) that are good choices to model a star.

Figure 5. Directional light bulbs are not good choices to model a star.

Find a place to take measurements.

Find an area that is approximately two by three meters in a room that can be darkened (like a room without windows or one where you can close the window blinds if there are windows). For brighter bulbs, you might need a larger space.

Remove shiny items that can reflect light.

Be as far as possible from walls that might reflect light.

Cover the floor with dark poster board or a dark-colored sheet if the chosen area has shiny or light-colored floors.

Set up the light source, measuring tape, and phone. Figure 6 shows an example of a setup.

Some things to keep in mind when you design your setup:

The light sensor on the phone needs to be at the same height as the light source. Look back at step 1.a. if you need help finding the exact location of the light sensor. In the setup shown in Figure 6, this is done by placing the bulb on a ball of clay.

Find a way to glide the phone in a controlled way towards or away from the light source. In Figure 6, the phone is resting on the ground. Other solutions are resting the phone on an easel, a camera stand, etc.

Place the measuring tape in a way that you can easily read the distance between the light source and the light sensor.

Figure 6. Experimental setup to measure light intensity versus distance of a light source. Note that in your setup, the floor covering should be dark to reduce the reflection of light on the floor. The green arrow shows how the light source and the light sensor line up. The blue arrow shows that the light source is located at the 0 cm point of the measuring tape.

Measuring

Create a table like Table 1 in your lab notebook.

Light Intensity Measurements

Distance from light source [cm.]

Trial 1 [lux]

Trial 2 [lux]

Trial 3 [lux]

Average of trials [lux]

Table 1. Table to record measured light intensity for varying distances from the light source.

Darken the room. Do your best to eliminate as many stray sources of light as possible. Then, turn on the light bulb. People with sensitive eyes might want to put on sunglasses. Note: Some light bulbs need a few minutes to reach their maximum brightness. Wait until the bulb's brightness is steady before you start your experiment.

Start by holding the sensor relatively close to the bulb. Remember the light sensor must always be level with the light source. Move the phone away from the light source and determine a distance where the measurement is very low and changes minimally with changing distance. This will be your starting distance.

This step describes how to measure and record a single data point at each distance with the Science Journal App in meter mode. Optionally, you can also record data continuously while moving the phone toward the light source in constant intervals, as described in the Recording Data While Moving the Phone section.

Hold the phone at the starting distance.

Write down the distance in your lab notebook, read the lux measurement from your phone and record the measurement value in your table. You can also take a snapshot of your light intensity reading as explained in the tutorial. Important note: Lux readings over 1,000 might be abbreviated using a "K" (for example, 1K, 2K, etc.). This can make it difficult to get accurate readings. If this occurs, use the app to take a short recording instead, and then drag the data cursor to read the exact value from the graph.

Move the phone 5 cm closer to the light source and repeat step b. Continue this until the light sensor is very close to the light source. To record higher-resolution data, reduce the distance between consecutive measurements from 5 to 2.5 cm.

Note: If your values start flickering, or you get unexplained low values, this could be due to interference between the sampling frequency of the sensor (how many data points it records per second) and the flickering of the light source, which might be flickering faster than your eye can see. If this happens, try one more time. If the issue persists, switching to a different light source or a different phone usually solves the problem.

This finishes one trial. Repeat step 4 two more times for a total of three trials.

Recording Data While Moving the Phone

Optional: As an alternative to writing down the lux values while you do the experiment, the Science Journal App allows you to record how light intensity varies over time. If done as described below, you can read the measured lux values for different distances from such a graph.

To create the graph, open the Science Journal app and start a new experiment. Make sure to label it appropriately. Then, choose the light intensity sensor.

Put your phone in place at the starting distance you determined in step 3 of section "Measuring." Write the starting distance down in your notebook.

Press the record button.

Move the phone 5 cm towards the light source every 10 seconds (s). Note a time axis is displayed on the phone while you are recording in graph mode.

Press the record button again to stop recording. Do not forget to write the starting distance and the distance over which you shifted the phone every 10 s. in the notes of the graph.

Use the graph to fill in your data table. Here are some hints:

The first 10 seconds of your graph were taken at the starting distance from the source.

Every 10 seconds, the phone was moved a fixed distance (e.g. 5 cm) closer to the source. Can you find a formula to find the distance to the source at any given time?

Touching a point on the graph displays the X value (elapsed time) and Y value (measured light intensity in lux) of that point on the graph.

Figure 7 shows an example graph over a period of 55 seconds, where the phone was moved closer to the light source every 10 seconds.

To record higher resolution data, do another trial and move the phone in smaller steps (e.g. steps of 2.5 cm instead of 5 cm).

Figure 7. Example data from the Science Journal app while moving the phone closer to the light source every 10 seconds. The x-axis of the graph shows time in minute:seconds [min:s] and the y-axis is light intensity in lux.

Analyzing Your Data Table

Calculate the average light intensity for each distance from the three trials and record your calculations in the last column of your data table.

Make a line graph that plots the distance (in cm) on the x-axis and the average light intensity (in lux) on the y-axis.

Looking at your graph, can you find a relationship between light intensity and distance to the light source?

Does light intensity increase or decrease with distance?

Is the relationship linear, meaning you can draw one straight line so all data points are close to this line? Or does it look like the data points follow a curve?

If it looks like a curve, is the light intensity equal to a constant divided by the distance (indicating an inverse relationship), or, is the light intensity equal to a constant divided by the distance squared (indicating an inverse-square law)?

What happens when you get very far away from the light source? Does the law you discovered in previous steps still hold? If your law does not hold there, why could this be? Could you change your setup so the law governs a wider range of distances?

If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:

Physicists have a big goal in mind—to understand the nature of the entire universe and everything in it! To reach that goal, they observe and measure natural events seen on Earth and in the universe, and then develop theories, using mathematics, to explain why those phenomena occur. Physicists take on the challenge of explaining events that happen on the grandest scale imaginable to those that happen at the level of the smallest atomic particles. Their theories are then applied to human-scale projects to bring people new technologies, like computers, lasers, and fusion energy.
Read more

Astronomers think big! They want to understand the entire universe—the nature of the Sun, Moon, planets, stars, galaxies, and everything in between. An astronomer's work can be pure science—gathering and analyzing data from instruments and creating theories about the nature of cosmic objects—or the work can be applied to practical problems in space flight and navigation, or satellite communications.
Read more

Variations

What happens with a light source that is not a point source, but is directed, like a flashlight? Redo the project using a flashlight or other directional light. Note: Do not use a laser for this project! There is a high risk of eye damage from looking into a laser.

In this science project, you tested one light bulb. You can also verify if the relationship holds over several types or different powers of light bulbs.

Share your story with Science Buddies!

Yes,I Did This Project!
Please log in (or create a free account) to let us know how things went.

Ask an Expert

The Ask an Expert Forum is intended to be a place where students can go to find answers to science questions that they have been unable to find using other resources. If you have specific questions about your science fair project or science fair, our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.

Related Links

News Feed on This Topic

,
,

Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results! Learn more about the News Feed

Looking for more science fun?

Try one of our science activities for quick, anytime science explorations. The perfect thing to liven up a rainy day, school vacation, or moment of boredom.

Compared to a typical science class, please tell us how much you learned doing this project.

Much more
More
About the same
Less
Much less

What was the most important thing you learned?

characters left

Science Buddies materials are free for everyone to use, thanks to the support of our sponsors. What would you tell our sponsors about how Science Buddies helped you with your project?

characters left

Optional:Attach a picture of your project (JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG only)

Optional:Caption for picture

characters left

Support for Science Buddies provided by:

You can find this page online at: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Astro_p034/astronomy/how-does-light-intensity-change-with-distance

You may print and distribute up to 200 copies of this document annually, at no charge, for personal and classroom educational use. When printing this document, you may NOT modify it in any way. For any other use, please contact Science Buddies.